Mercedes Enterprise

The paper's first editor, Isadore Moritz, was born in San Antonio in 1883 to Alsatian immigrants. The Institute of Southern Jewish Life calls the Enterprise the first weekly in the Valley outside Brownsville. Moritz also helped found the Mercedes Masonic lodge and was its first Senior Warden. By 1912 he had organized lodges in Harlingen and other towns and was appointed District Deputy Grand Master of the 40th Masonic District, and he moved to Brownsville that year. He later lived in Harlingen, where he was news editor at radio station KRGV.

What the plaque says

Mercedes Enterprise On October 8, 1908, Isadore Moritz published the first issue of the Mercedes Enterprise. He continued the operation until 1914; that same year, Ben E. Brooks and L.T. Hoyt began the Mercedes Tribute. Another paper, the News-Item, started in 1922 and merged with the Tribune seven years later to form the News-Tribune. Paul Netz bought the franchise in 1941 and restored the original name. The newspaper has chronicled major national and international events, as well as community stories. The Enterprise has documented local history through special anniversary editions and has offered printing services, including bilingual publications, to area school districts, businesses and agencies. (2007)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge — 15 mi
  About 2,000 acres of river forest on the Rio Grande's north bank, the surviving part of Benigno Leal's 1834 land grant, kept as a refuge since 1943 where two bird migration routes meet.
• Museum of South Texas History — 19 mi
  Edinburg's regional museum, begun in 1967 in the 1910 Hidalgo County jail and now telling the Rio Grande's story from fossils and native peoples through steamboats to the 20th century.
• La Lomita Chapel — 26 mi
  A small sandstone chapel on the Rio Grande levee, built by Oblate missionaries in 1865 and rebuilt at this site in 1899, the landmark that gave the city of Mission its name.
• Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park — 29 mi
  A flat coastal prairie north of Brownsville where Taylor's army and Arista's Army of the North fought the first major battle of the Mexican War on May 8, 1846, now interpreted from both sides.

More markers nearby

• The Hidalgo County Bank and Trust Company — steps away
• The American Rio Grande Land and Irrigation System — steps away
• Dr. Hector P. García — steps away
• Temple Beth Israel — 0.5 mi